Jumbo causes 1m damage to farmland

7 January 2000



Jumbo causes 1m damage to farmland

By FWi staff

MORE than 1 million of damage was caused to Essex farmland by the Korean jumbo jet which crashed shortly after take-off from Stansted airport.

The Boeing 747 cargo plane crashed on to fields farmed by Andy Streeter at Bedlars Green, Great Hallingbury, creating a crater half a mile long.

Mr Streeter said his farm had been put out of action for at least a year by the incident, which killed all four aircrew on board the plane on 22 December.

Much of the debris is still embedded deep underground, and it will be months before experts complete the recovery operation, he said.

Since the crash, Mr Streeter has spent most of his time in meetings with safety officials and inspectors who are investigating the accident.

Assessors have estimated that the damage bill will top 1m from the incident, which was the first jumbo-jet crash in Britain since Lockerbie in 1988.

Rumours that the cargo plane was carrying depleted uranium in its tailfin were confirmed by an interim accident report on Thursday (6 January).

The Air Accident Investigation Board said all Boeing 747s of the type that crashed contained “several hundred kilos” of the substance as ballast.

The report reaches no conclusion about the cause of the crash, and the farm remains sealed off from the general public by police.

On the day the report was released, Mr Streeter spent most of his time in three separate meetings which lasted until well past 9.30pm.

Dealing with the aftermath of the crash had become a “full-time job”, and he had no time left for practical farming, he said.

Farm consultants ADAS are involved in the clean-up at the crash-site and estimate that the operation will take more than six months.

“Were in the process of assessing the situation now and characterising the area so we can do a risk assessment,” said a company spokesman.